


Unlit fires

by ad_meliora



Category: Rebecca (Movie 2020), Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:06:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29446755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ad_meliora/pseuds/ad_meliora
Summary: Maxim is convicted of Rebecca's murder leaving the second Mrs. de Winter to run the house alone. Mrs. de Winter never quite finds her voice under Maxim's shadow, even in his defense. She never goes to London and Mrs. Danvers is not driven to burn Manderley down. Left alone together, the two find a kind of normalcy together.
Relationships: Mrs. Danvers (Rebecca)/Narrator (Rebecca), Mrs. Danvers (Rebecca)/ich
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This has been bouncing around in my head for a bit, so I decided to share. Let me know what you think.

She hated Mrs. Danvers. She did. Mrs. Danvers was worse than the others. She was unrelenting and conniving and brutal and she hated her. She found herself constantly wishing to pull down her hair out of its perfect arrangement, wanting to muss and tarnish Danvers’ perfect veneer. Perhaps if she was alone she would. Perhaps next time Danvers snuck up on her in the morning room or caught her in Rebecca’s rooms. She would reach up and tug the hair and the nape of her neck and watch the whole elaborate coif tumble down.

Alas, she lacked the guts to do it. She never even lifted her hand to Danny. The whole thing was silly. She could just fire her. Or make her do it herself. She was the lady of the house, after all.

“Take down your hair, Mrs. Danvers,” she said. Mrs. Danvers eyed her frostily from her position at the center of the room.

“I am sure that I do not know what you are asking, Madam.”

“I want to see your hair. You seem so fixated on mine. And Rebecca’s.”

In her head, it sounded sharp, like a reprimand. She imagined Mrs. Danvers would be shocked into submission. But the words came out almost shy and and soft. Mrs. Danvers did as she was told, but her measured movements made clear that the only thing she had submitted to was the constraints of her station, not the woman before her. She pulled the pins out methodically one by one and deposited them in the palm of her left hand. Her hair drooped and then fell, unfurling like a scroll down her back. It made her look younger and somehow more ferocious, almost a Minerva.

“Was that all?” Mrs. Danvers asked, eyes focused and intent on her face.

“No,” she replied defiantly, although it came forth somewhat petulant. “Take off your blazer.”

Mrs. Danvers complied, depositing the pins in her pocket and then sliding the jacket down and folding it over her arm neatly, nonplussed.

“What else would you have me do, Madam?” she goaded. “Would you like me take of my shoes, too? Or my blouse?” She advanced a step toward Mrs. de Winter. “Is that what you want?” Another step. “My skirt?”

Mrs. Danvers hovered over her, the blazer still over her arm. She folded it over once more and set it on the writing desk.

“You’re a coward,” she said. “You have no idea what you want and no will to find out.” Mrs. Danvers lifted the young woman’s chin. “I know you,” she said firmly.

Her shoes scarcely made a sound when she left.

Mrs. Danvers did not speak to her again, not of her own accord. Ever economical with her words, it was clear Mrs. Danvers had decided she no longer merited verbal expenditures beyond the exchanges necessary to running the house. It was unnerving. She confided as much to Maxim, her head on his chest.

“You can’t be so timid with her. Command her. She’s a servant for god’s sake,” he said. Her mind raced at the thought. She hadn’t dared to tell him about the morning room and her attempts to “command” Mrs. Danvers. She nodded mutely against Maxim’s chest, then added softly, “I will try.”

The truth was that she did try, but her voice failed her. It felt as though she had been bewitched — brought under Manderley’s spell and its defiant stewardess. Her presence was inescapable. She had even begun to infiltrate her dreams, a specter in the hallway as she wandered, occasionally chasing, occasionally chased. She dreamed once of finding Mrs. Danvers, wrapped in the embrace of a long dark haired woman on a chaise in the morning room, her eyes blissfully closed and neck outstretched. Even in dreams, she was a powerless voyeur.

She found surprising relief in resignation. Mrs. Danvers would not bend to her, but she realized, only after the disaster of the ball, Mrs. Danvers could break her. Had the flares not gone off, she very well might have. So she resigned herself. To everything. To Maxim’s murderousness, to Mrs. Danvers devotion. Complete resignation. She found this suited her best, particularly where Mrs. Danvers was concerned. The more she gave, the smoother their relations were. Once, she thought she even saw a flash of tenderness in the older woman’s face.

What she had not expected was Maxim’s imprisonment. The doctor’s office had no records of Rebecca de Winter and thus it could have only been as the inquisitor supposed, that Rebecca had at least fallen pregnant and Maxim, in a jealous rage had killed her. Of course he had to be punished. Locked up. Suddenly she possessed freedom unknown. Everything she could had dreamt of.

She cried the first night alone, weeping into her pillow. A sharp knock startled her at the door and her heart fluttered with a new kind of terror, fear that without Maxim the specters of the house had somehow become real. But it was only her specter, Danvers.

“Madam,” she said. “Would you like some tea.” Her back was straight and her hands folded in front of her like a statuette.

She shook her head and felt silly. “No, thank you, Mrs. Danvers.”

“Is there anything you require?”

“You won’t leave, will you? I don’t know what would happen if you left.”

“No, madam.”

She wiped her eyes on the edge of her nightgown sleeve.

“Is she still here?” She asked. “Like you said before in the bedroom.”

“Less and less everyday.”

“What will you do when she is gone?”

“Throw myself into the sea, I suppose,” she answered seriously. “There will be nothing left here for me.”

She looked up at Mrs. Danvers, her serious expression and gaunt face. She too, looked resigned. How could she be? She reached for her face, her fingers gently caressing her temple and cheek.

“Lay down with me. So that I can sleep,” she said. “Please.”

Mrs. Danvers nodded almost imperceptibly, then sat on the edge of the bed, removing her shoes and then her jacket, which she folded over the arm of a reading chair. She did not remove her stockings, or even her blouse, nor did she slide beneath the blankets as the younger woman had. She laid across them woodenly, listening for the telltale rhythm of sleep before slipping her shoes and jacket back on and climbing the stairs back to her attic room.

She continued to ask for Mrs. Danvers company nightly. Every time, Mrs. Danvers would comply, laying with her until she fell asleep, then retreating up the hidden stairs to the attic, leaving her to be awoken by Clarice alone. They barely spoke. Occasionally she dreamt, but never of being haunted. Perhaps having a specter in her bed kept the others at bay. Still, other dreams came, one so fierce and violent she started awake, afraid and, she realized as she felt the bed beside her, alone.

She climbed the stairs hesitantly, careful not to be too loud or miss a step. She remembered Mrs. Danvers’ door, gently pushing it open in an attempt not to wake her.

“Good evening, madam,” a voice greeted her. It was lower than usual, still clouded by sleep. As her eyes adjusted she could see Mrs. Danvers sitting up in her bed.

“Mrs. Danvers,” she acknowledged. “I am afraid I cannot sleep. I...”

“Yes, quite,” Mrs Danvers cut her off. She was standing next to her seated frame in the darkness.

“Can I?” She asked. Mrs. Danvers moved over, ceding the warm spot where she had been lying to Mrs. de Winter. She instinctively climbed in, waiting for Mrs. Danvers to slide back down into bed and lie with her.

“Rest your head in my lap,” she instructed coolly. She complied, adjusting so that her head rested atop the blankets bunched in Mrs. Danvers lap. She felt a hand gently stroke her hair. She nuzzled into the blankets and quickly fell asleep.

This too, became a pattern. Mrs Danvers informed Clarice that she would no longer need to wake Mrs. de Winter, the task now having become her own. Nightly, the younger woman would climb the stairs, and nightly Mrs. Danvers, sleepily, would allow her into her own small bed. She found it cramped and on more than one occasion had considered pushing the younger woman out of bed in the night and blaming it on restlessness in sleep, but she could never quite muster the energy. And so it continued.

When summer arrived, their arrangement became unbearable. The attic was too hot for the pair of them, particularly Mrs. Danvers, who had become accustomed to weathering the heat in silken nightgowns gifted to her by Rebecca. They were beautifully sheer and light, almost like wearing nothing at all. She refused to wear such things in the company of the younger Mrs. de Winter and was subsequently sweltering every time she climbed into bed. It was all too much and she resolved on a particularly hot day that she would not allow Mrs. de Winter in this time. She would wear her silken nightie and she would lock the door and that would be that. She relished the idea. The notion that Mrs. de Winter carried the skeleton key had never even crossed her mind.

Mrs. de Winter stood in the doorway in her cotton nightshirt, startled it seemed by Danvers’ lack of preparedness. Normally sitting upright by the time she entered, Mrs. Danvers looked as though she had been startled from rest, leaning up on her elbow with the thin bedsheet falling at her waist. She looked like a painting, something from the neoclassical revival, achingly feminine. A strap from the sheer gown dangled limply off her shoulder.

Mrs. de Winter did not consciously decide to walk to her, but found her feet carried her anyway, her lips, of their own accord, pressing to the curve of that shoulder. She could feel the hitch of breath.

“Can I?” she asked. Mrs. Danvers nodded shallowly, scooting over in bed as she had so many nights before. Mrs. de Winter slid in beside her, resting her head on Mrs. Danvers’ shoulder. She felt Danvers rise to a seated position, allowing her to rest her head in her lap. She turned to kiss her thigh through the silky gown, eyes gently falling shut as Mrs. Danvers began to stroke her hair.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another de Winter dies prematurely.

News of Maxim’s death arrived by car in the form of his solicitor, an old grey man called Mr. Feathers with a drooping mustache. Maxim had died in a brawl at the jail, smashed over the head with something or another. Her head swam. Mrs. Danvers sent for Frank, who rushed up from the stables where he had been supervising workmen. She allowed herself to be guided out of the room by her elbow, realizing belatedly that it was Mrs. Danvers gently leading her up to her bedroom with its ugly ivy bedspread.

“No!” She cried out, pulling herself backward away from the doorway. “No, I don’t want to!”

“You need to lie down,” Mrs. Danvers replied with stony calm.

“Not there,” the younger woman cried. “Please don’t make me go in there.” Her face has grown wet and red with tears. Mrs. Danvers appraised her silently.

“Sometimes I forget that you are still little more than a child,” she said finally, dropping her elbow and leading the new widow de Winter to the morning room. “I will send Clarice for you.”

Frank oversaw the arrangements, recruiting Mrs. Danvers for the preparation of the house. Under the circumstances, there would be no grandeur of mourning, only a small ceremony and burial, but it was imperative that the house should look appropriately somber for those relatives who came to call regardless.

The first night had felt long. She’d laid out in the morning room, covered in a housecoat until she’d fallen asleep, dreaming about vines climbing out of the bedroom she had vacated, searching for her. She awoke gasping, unsteady, searching the corners of the room as her eyes adjusted to the blank darkness of the night. She could hear the flutter of sleepy breath beside her, familiar and soft. Danny. Lying on the floor beside the chaise. Mrs. de Winter slid herself to the floor and tucked herself into the gentle curve of her body.

She ordered new linens for the bedroom. Had anyone asked, she might have insisted that the old set reminded her too much of her deceased love, but the question never arose, least of all from Danny, whose lips rarely seemed to part at all. She had thought perhaps Danny would find joy in Maxim’s death, a kind of cosmic retribution that the man responsible for the destruction of her world had in turn been destroyed, but no such happiness ever manifested. She tended to the house quietly, almost as though being absorbed into it. It was all-but unbearable.

“Teach me something,” she burst out one morning, watching Mrs. Danvers appraising the cleanliness of the morning room. There was no particular reason for it, except that the day was so lovely and Mrs. Danvers so quiet. Danvers looked up at her in thinly veiled and unimpressed surprise.

“I have nothing to teach, Madam.”

“Don’t be silly. Teach me something.” Mrs. Danvers pursed her lips. “Teach me how you put up your hair.”

“If you wish to have your hair put up you need only ask. Clarice can do whatever you wish.”

“I don’t want to Clarice to do it. I want to do it myself. And how would she know how? You’re the only one who wears your hair that way.”

“Would you prefer me to wear it another way?”

“No! Of course not.”

“Your hair is too short,” she dismissed, picking up and then replacing a small statuette. “It would not hold anyway.” She straightened her jacket. “If you will excuse me, Madam, I will inquire about the menu this evening.”

She thought often of Danny’s declaration about the sea and did everything she could think of to keep her as far from it as possible. She could hardly bear the thought of being left alone again. She could not survive it, she knew. Manderely had almost killed her once, by Danny’s own tongue. She did not want to chance her luck again.

When the wind howled off the cliffs, she thought about Rebecca. Perhaps she was angry with her for trying to keep Danny from joining the next world, announcing her displeasure with the roar of the weather. Or perhaps it was a siren call of sorts. She wound her arms tightly around Danny on storming nights like those, burying in her face into Danny in that way she had an accustomed to, her nose resting at the nape of her neck. She could feel Danny stir in the night this way, could feel her slowly extricate herself in the morning, could feel the gentle way Danny pushed her hair off her face.

She shuttered the boat house. It had no purpose anymore as either boathouse or studio. Instead, she drew in the library. The light was better and the subject matter more interesting. Danny commented on her hands after each drawing session, inevitably smeared with graphite or charcoal. She did not mind. Although far from warm, Danny’s words had lost their malice. They did not wound or frighten her. How could they?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I killed Maxim. I think it's more interesting this way. No regrets.


End file.
